The Confederate States had no regular navy, and but few vessels; they were an agricultural community, not a commercial or a ship-building people. Quite a number of vessels were put in commission under letters of marque, and these reached the high seas by running the blockade. Many prizes were taken and run into Southern ports. Later on steamers were fitted out and sent to sea under command of experienced officers. This naval militia captured millions of the enemy's property, and produced a great sensation at the North. A Southern agent was sent abroad by the naval department to get ships and supplies. "In three years' time," says Mr. Blaine, "fifteen millions of property had been destroyed by Southern privateers, given to the flames, or sunk beneath the waters. The shipping of the United States was reduced one-half, and the commercial flag of the Union fluttered with terror in every wind that blew, from the whale fisheries of the Arctic to the Southern Cross."
On the 21st of May, the Confederate Congress, after providing for the disposition of these naval prizes, and the treatment of prisoners of war brought into Southern ports, adjourned to meet on the 20th of July in the City of Richmond, now selected as the permanent seat of Government of the Confederacy.
The powers of Europe never recognized the Confederate States as a separate nation. The leaders of the English Government were, no doubt, inclined to this step, but the rank and file of the Liberal party, under the leadership of John Bright, refused to sanction such a course toward a government whose corner stone was slavery. Mr. Seward ingeniously pressed the point that Southern success meant a slave oligarchy around the Gulf of Mexico. Russia remained the strong ally of the Northern States. England, with the Crimean War fresh upon her hands, hesitated before engaging Russia again or imperiling India in the East. France could not afford to take the step without the aid of England. Secretary Toombs dispatched a Minister to Mexico to look into the interesting tumult then going on. Louis Napoleon was filled with his desire of establishing Maximilian in Mexico, but his movement did not succeed. Maximilian was defeated and executed, and Napoleon found himself too much engaged with the House of Hohenzollern in Germany to follow any new or original policy in America.
Carlyle declared with dyspeptic acrimony that the Civil War was the foulest chimney of the century, and should be allowed to burn out.
Secretary Toombs had issued credentials to commissioners to the unseceded Southern States. On the 17th of April Virginia seceded; on the 28th of May North Carolina went out of the Union; these were followed by Tennessee and Arkansas. The border States of Kentucky and Missouri did not formally secede, but indignantly declined to furnish troops in response to Mr. Lincoln's proclamation. They appointed delegates to a Peace Congress to meet in Washington.
The tedious routine of the State Department did not suit the restless spirit of Robert Toombs. He had established relations abroad as belligerents, and had placed the new government in touch with its Southern neighbors. His dispatches were remarkable for brevity, clearness, and boldness; his public papers are models of nervous style, but he longed for a more active field in the revolution. He chafed under red-tape and convention. Toombs charged the new administration with too much caution and timidity. He declared that ninety per cent of war was business, and that the South must organize victory rather than trust entirety to fighting. He urged the government to send over cotton to England and buy arms and ships forthwith. "Joe Brown," he impatiently declared, "had more guns than the whole Confederacy. No new government," said he, "ever started with such unlimited credit." Mr. Toombs believed that the financial part of the Confederacy was a failure. "We could have whipped the fight," said he, in his impetuous way, "in the first sixty days. The contest was haphazard from the first, and nothing but miraculous valor kept it going." Mr. Toombs said that had he been President of the Confederacy, he would have mortgaged every pound of cotton to France and England at a price that would have remunerated the planters, and in consideration of which he would have secured the aid of the armies and navies of both countries.
But Robert Toombs concluded that his place was in the field, not in the Cabinet. Too many prominent men, he explained, were seeking bombproof positions. He received a commission as brigadier general, and on the 21st of July, 1861, joined Generals Beauregard and Johnston at Manassas.